LEAH GARCHIK

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Friends and fans gathered at the Alexander Book Company on Thursday to mark the publication of Jerry Thompson and Duane Deterville's "Black Artists in Oakland," part of Arcadia's Images of America series.

Deterville is a visual artist, writer and co-founder of Sankofa Cultural Institute. Thompson is a violinist, playwright, poet, former bookstore owner and former event coordinator at the Alexander Book Company, a job he held for about 10 years. Returning to the Second Street shop with his own book was a homecoming. The two were surrounded by pals, including at least three artists ( Reginald Lockett, Woody Johnson and Donald Greene) mentioned in the book and regulars who like to turn up at Alexander events.

It was easy to see why. The store's events coordinator, Bernard Henderson, also is a video-man (he taped the authors' talk and Q&A), and, sometime caterer for the bookstore. A reading by an Alexander alum was cause to bring out the pots and pans. And the happy lunchtime gathering in the bookstore was a reading, a signing and also a chance to break bread together, sharing platters of food cooked by Henderson: fried chicken, collard greens, black-eyed peas, macaroni and cheese, cornbread, sweet potatoes and banana pudding for dessert.

The book hails Oakland's vibrant community of artists, some of whom will visit three Oakland middle schools this fall with the authors. The feeling of familiar affection at the store transcended the usual polite murmurs over wine and cheese. Henderson urged a pregnant woman pausing at the buffet and about to fill her plate: "Go, Mama. Eat it up."

Thompson and Deterville will be at the Oakland Museum's First Friday of the month event at 5 p.m.

John Oliver Comes After Mike Pence with Surprise Children’s Book about Gay BunnyEntertainment Weekly

-- On behalf of employees of the
AAA of Northern California
,
Nevada and Utah
, Chief Executive Officer
Jim Pouliot
recently received a Point of Light Award from former President
George Bush
in Philadelphia. Pouliot thanked 7,000 volunteers and then - although he was described in a Chronicle profile last year as a man "careful and measured in his words" - thanked them for not laughing out loud when he wears a hair net to serve food at Glide.

-- Alexandra Casazza reports that Sri Lanka- and London-raised hip-hop artist M.I.A., who played the Rickshaw Stop on Saturday, was seen at 2:30 Friday morning buying a burrito at El Farolito (which I'm told is the place to go if you want a big bite in the wee hours). James Gandolfini and son stayed at the Claremont last week, where at one point, a security guard protected the actor from groupies trailing him. The Gandolfinis were spotted Sunday at the Bay Area Discovery Museum, too.

-- Mary Currie of the Golden Gate Bridge District reports that those emergency phones on the bridge got fixed last Thursday. They were out while new lines were installed for seismic retrofit.

Scott Reda
's girlfriend was to fly to Chicago on July 21 on a very early flight, and his dream was to buy her a copy of the new
Harry Potter
book. But the book wasn't to be sold until a minute after midnight the night before, and he didn't want to join long lines, so with a few days to go, he gave up.

And then, the Thursday before, he stopped at a Safeway (which will not be identified, to keep its workers out of hot water) for a few groceries. And there, in a plastic-covered display case, he saw copies of the book. "I paused, transfixed," he said. "I almost didn't know what was happening. Things got blurry, my heart rate shot up, my hands got sweaty."

He took two and made for a cashier, looking for one "who wouldn't have any idea what he was ringing up," someone who "might not be culturally savvy." He put the books face down on the conveyor belt, and began picking things off the display nearby so as to surround the contraband with other merchandise: a Globe, Soap Opera Digest, Chapstick. When a group of kids got in line behind him, he placed his body between them and the books so they couldn't see what he was buying. As the cashier rang up the purchase, "I kept eye contact, and kept talking to him. I could have had a stack of grenades on the conveyor belt, and he wouldn't have noticed."

He rushed outside, called his girlfriend and told her to come home. Some people make a big deal of having a baby on Jan. 1, he said, or celebrating an anniversary on a particular date. For Reda and his girlfriend, the Harry Potter book purchase, a day and a half ahead of the embargo, is "a sweet little bubble that we get to wrap around ourselves. ... For us, this will forever be a cool story."

P.S.: Sarah Paris says she encountered "the rudest person ever on Muni" last week, a mother "who felt the 5-Fulton was a comfortable place to read aloud to her three children ... the last chapter of the new Harry Potter novel."

P.P.S.: San Francisco artist Dugald Stermer, who's never read a Harry Potter book, was hired by Entertainment Weekly to draw a four-page field guide of characters. His children and grandchildren are proud.

Public eavesdropping

"I know it's an accomplishment, but right now I feel like crap."

Man to his family, overheard at the finish line of Sunday's San Francisco marathon by Dan Tintor